Photo of Charles Gocher by Kerry Kugelman
Photo by Kerry Kugelman

In Memoriam Charles Gocher, 1952 – 2007

"I read a pop bio about Harry Houdini, and it inspired me to make it seem like I was breaking out of manacles and a straight jacket. So I played the drums like that — and I still do. It's an escapist reality, in a way!"

Charles Gocher quoted in "Hiding in Plain Sight" by Mike McGonigal,
Seattle Weekly, April 14, 2004.

Biography

It's Go-SHAY, mudah-fucka. Photo by Mark Sullo.
Photo by Mark Sullo

"Charles Gocher’s history is a bit clouded in mystery, but the Bishop brothers have been able to piece together his life story over the years. He was born in San Rafael, California, and his dad died when he was 9. His mom passed away a year before Gocher did. He played in a late-’60s pop cover band in Glendale, California; later, he moved to Prescott, Arizona, where he was a guitarist in a California-sound acid-rock band called Cha Cha Billy. After that, he relocated to Phoenix, where he eventually met the Bishop brothers when he executed a bizarre performance-art piece at that infamous open-mike night at Tony’s Pizza. Gocher was immediately asked to be the drummer for Sun City Girls, and the rest is history."

— Mike Rowell, "Remembering a Monster," (alt link) Seattle Weekly, May 13, 2008


"He was a private and secretive individual and it seems like almost a betrayal of our friendship to reveal who he was to just anyone... Outsiders have barely broken ground in any attempt at a true and meaningful excavation of SCG or Gocher. And for Gocher moving beyond SCG, there remains the task of transcribing his stacks of assorted notebooks spanning 40 years...his 200 hours of video and film work, and his many unheard cassette recordings. ...I suppose that we really have only one option left. We need to have a filtering process to eliminate all those who are ineligible to find out anything further about the life of one Mister Charles Gocher Jr."

— from Alan Bishop, "Invisible Tempos of the Vanishing Assassin" (parts 1 & 2), Perfect Sound Forever, April 2008

Announcements

February 20, 2007

With deep regret, we must announce that Charles Gocher passed away on February 19th, 2007 in Seattle from a long battle with cancer at the age of 54. He is survived by the two of us who adopted him as a brother 25 years ago and his many friends around the world. He will be missed more than most could ever know. Our thanks to everyone for their support and encouragement during the past three, very difficult years. Many of you were not aware that Charles was ill and that's because he wanted it that way. Details of a memorial in his honor will be announced soon.

— Alan and Richard Bishop (Sun City Girls)

February 26, 2007

Our sincerest thanks for the many letters, messages, posts, and tributes all of you have sent to us this past week in support after the passing of Charlie. There were simply too many of them for us to even begin to respond to personally.

We have decided to hold a private memorial in Seattle for close friends only to celebrate his legacy. At a later date, when we can collect our thoughts to properly honor him, we will pay tribute to Charles at a public venue by screening films and displaying some of his drawings and photographs, and possibly perform some of his songs.

As many of you have suspected, Sun City Girls will no longer exist as a performing entity. Nor will any new recording projects be created utilizing the name Sun City Girls. There are many unreleased recordings and videos that will surface when time permits to release them.

— Alan and Richard Bishop (Sun City Girls)

March 11, 2008

ALAN BISHOP and RICHARD BISHOP Present:
THE BROTHERS UNCONNECTED
A Tribute to SUN CITY GIRLS and CHARLES GOCHER

Beginning in May 2008 the founding and surviving members of Sun City Girls, Alan Bishop and Richard Bishop, are embarking on a tour of the US and Canada called The Brothers Unconnected: A tribute to Sun City Girls and Charles Gocher.

The tour begins in Seattle on Sunday, May 18 at The Triple Door and will continue across North America through early July. With this tour, Alan and Rick make good on their solemn vow to publicly honor Charlie, his memory, and his immense talent. Sun City Girls will no longer exist as a recording or performing entity and this tour also serves as a tribute to the legacy of the group.

Most dates will feature an opening 40 minute film of Charles Gocher's video works entitled The Handsome Stranger, which is equal parts demented, brilliant, hilarious, and inventive. This will be followed by two acoustic sets of Alan and Rick playing selected songs from the impossibly voluminous catalog of Sun City Girls material created during their 27 year history together, including several tracks written by and/or originally performed by Gocher.

Learn more about the Brothers Unconnected tour

(Official digital re-release of the 2008 Brothers Unconnected tour CD, via Bandcamp)

Testament

(Last updated: January 2, 2025)

Official Links

Articles, Blog Posts, and Writings

A/V Media Online

Charles Gocher performing 'An Old Eyeball In a Quart Jar of Snot' in the 1994 video 'Cloaven Theater'

  • Audio: Charles Gocher, "Dream of Shadows" via Ri Be Xibalba on SoundCloud – Recorded live on CITR radio on July 2, 1990 in Vancouver, B.C. by Keith Parry of Scratch Records. This track was originally issued on the compilation LP …and Shiva Came For Charlie (Ri Be Xibalba, 2008). The LP featured a number of Charlie's friends and collaborators from the Seattle area.
  • Audio: selections from the Sun City Girls album Dante's Disneyland Inferno (Abduction, 1996), featuring dark and twisted storytelling by Charles Gocher backed by a variety of instrumental moods (all via Sun City Girls on Bandcamp)
    • "Charles Gocher, Sr."
      "Hello. My name is Charles Gocher, Sr. I was this gentleman’s father. I was born in San Leandro, California, in 1906, and died in Los Angeles in 1964. Charlie was very young then. Right now, his song is paying homage to the past. You folks might not realize this, but every one person in each of your ancestral chains is very important to you, because without each link’s role in continuing your lineage, you would never have been born. Listen to him as he plays his song, and its meaning will become clear. He’s discovered a new method of cheating the cycles of Hindustan. He’s donated his body to Columbia University’s Musical Sciences Department. After he’s passed through this form, the department will take his body, remove the skeleton, and hollow out the bone marrow. They will be used as instruments for a thirteen-piece orchestra. The eight bones that comprised his arms and legs will have trumpet mouthpieces attached to one end, and will be used as horns. The five remaining bone sections — the rib cage, the hip bone, the shoulder bone, the back bone, and the skull — will be used as the percussion instruments, with the hands and the feet serving as the beaters. The musicians will be instructed in the methods taken from his writings pertaining to improvisational music. During the orchestra’s performance — delivered annually on November 12, his birthday — his internal organs, preserved in a canopic jar sitting on the stage front, will be guarded by a young Nepalese milkmaiden who, during the course of each ceremony, will fall into an ecstatic possession trance, and invoke his spirit in the same manner as he is invoking mine right now. Listen to his song. Let me leave you with one last thought: If his idea seems too preposterous, and if you don’t believe in the reincarnation of the soul, how do you know that we’re not all dead already?"
    • "Sexy Graveyard"
    • "Let's Pretend"
    • "Soft Fragile Eggshell Minds"
    • Full album
  • Video: Charles Gocher piano solo – from Cloaven Theater (VHS, Sun City Girls, 1994/2004) via YouTube
  • Video: Charlie lip-syncs to "An Old Eyeball In a Quart Jar of Snot" – from Cloaven Theater (VHS, Sun City Girls, 1994/2004) via YouTube
  • Music: Pint Sized Spartacus (Gravelvoice, 1997) full album – Charles Gocher's solo project. Via Bandcamp
  • Music: songs performed by Charles Gocher from Famous Songs from Days-Gone-By by The New Session People (Amarillo, 1997). (Full CD available from Drag City.)
  • Music: "Parting the Sea of Tranquility", from Pint Sized Spartacus by Charles Gocher (Gravelvoice, 1997) (MP3 - 2.5mb)
  • Photos: Final gig by Charles, with Sun City Girls at Club Transmediale festival, Berlin, Jan. 25, 2007; by Marco Microbi Reckmann (Berlin).
    (Protected under German and international copyright laws. Contact & clearances.)
  • Audio: Funeral Mariachi full album (Abduction, 2010) via Bandcamp – the final album by Sun City Girls. Post-production and final mastering was completed by the Bishop Brothers after Charles's death.

Archival articles



Charles Gocher with guitar, circa 2007
Photo by Climax Golden Twins

Charlie's drum set, at his memorial gathering. Photo by Mark Sullo.
Photo by Mark Sullo